Speaker: Teboh Nwachan Teboh , Bamenda, North West, Cameroon
How (and why) are you taking action on climate change solutions in, for, and with your community?
Teboh Nwachan Teboh : Hi, my name is Tung Wan Tur, a final year student studying agricultural and environmental engineering, specifically environmental engineering in the College of Technology or Well, how I'm going about the action taking climate action solution is by awareness. I believe that by creating awareness is going to make many people to be aware and know the impact of climate change in the environment and the world at large. Because in our locality where I'm living, so many people do not know about climate change and not knowing something is detrimental. So I believe that the first step in taking to fight against climate justice is to make the people to be aware that climate change does exist. Um We are the so cost of this climate change due to anthropogenic activities that are being carried out by us. The the the local farmers, all those that are involved in one activity or the other and carry on our daily activities. So by creating awareness, it brings to the mind of every individual that it is like this, everybody has the opportunity to fight against climate change in one way or the other starting from maybe an individual in the household and then before taking it to the public and before going out as, as a whole or fighting as a whole. And why am I going through this process of taking this action? I believe that, uh, knowing what you are fighting for is what, rather than just telling people that they just stop and certain things, maybe, maybe the aspect of waste management, they come and telling people that, uh, they shouldn't dump to waste. They should manage that waste without telling them the impact or the effect of which uh probably poor waste management has to do on the environment and on their health or poor agricultural farm practices. Because in my locality, we live by agriculture and that is what has been sustaining us and the soil is being degraded by the use of synthetic fertilizers. And you can't just go and start telling farmers to stop using synthetic fertilizers and go in for organic fertilizers. You need to force over aid to kill them. Give them the reason why they should stop the use of synthetic fertilizers and engage into organic fertilizers. So by so creating awareness, it brings into their mind and everybody have to be conscious of the effect of climate change, both to the environment and to the human health as well because while the environment is not healthy and it is not safe, the human health can never be healthy and we risk because if we don't start taking action now in fighting for climate change. Name, what happens to the future of our future generations to come? They might not even have a planet to live in. So it is high time. We stop doing the theoretical and rather taking action in fighting for climate justice. Thank you.
Who or what inspires/inspired you to care about climate change and climate solutions?
Teboh Nwachan Teboh : Yeah. What actually inspired me to care about climate change and climate solution. It's looking back in my community, my local community where I'm coming from, you find out that we mostly survive or we live by the agri we live by of agricultural produce. And in our locality where we do this farming, the heels that I gotten from the farm are being sold so so that our parents can get the money to sponsor our education and also increase our standard of living. And we also feed from this agricultural produce. But in the long run or in the past years, the agricultural use has drastically be reducing and it is still in the decrease. There are season that uh parents who plant crops and expecting it to do well. And the end of not do well at times, all the seeds that have been planted in the soil get b and all this is as a result of the climate change due to prolonged drought, uh uh heavy rainfall and all those stuff. Because in our locality, we uh farm based on natural resources, we farm and wait for the rain to do the watering and for the crops to grow. So when it is pure for farming, farmers will definitely estimate when it's gonna start raining and they, they plant their seed into the soil expecting that it's going to rain. But when they estimate between this period and there is no rain and they have planted the seeds on the field expecting rain. And when there's no rain, this these seeds in the field are bound to get bad. And when you get bad, the agricultural, he can never come out the same. And even when it wants to rain, it rains too too. He and by so doing it destroyed to the crops that have been planted on the on the field. So it makes it difficult and for the agriculture for the local farmers to survive now through agriculture. And by since that is the only means of survival or that the local people can survive. It makes it not difficult for farmers to or or the local people in the community to even have a good living standard and not just that you have flooding and other natural disasters, loss of biodiversity, loss of natural resources. We usually have springs that usually carry uh fresh drinking drinking water from. But due to prolonged drought, these streams are about to dry off and we cannot even longer access good drinking water in our locality. And it has made many people to migrate from one area to another one region to another just for in search of all these natural resources. And when people are gathered in a, in a in a locality and environment for these natural resources definitely means there's overcrowded and there's over pollution. And when the population is overcrowded, the rate of pollution that environment is also going to increase because they also tend to litter waste into the water, the water body that will be flowing downstream. And when this waste is being littered, I've had experience where it has been raining heavily. And due to the waste that was being done in these water bodies, the water could no longer flow. If the way it has to flow, it had to deviate and flow into the town, into the city. And by so doing it has to, it causes flooding and there there was no movement, it had to stop movement. And given that within that period of time, students were traveling for their exams and those that were traveling to attend courses and businesses, it has hindered so many things student cannot go in for their exams due to flooding today cannot go, cannot use that road, assess the road for those that are doing business, those are going to attend classes. So at a certain point, it has made some activity to stand still and even made some people to lose some hours of class and even made some people to lose their exams and why not even other losing their at the es of losing their lives because of the flooding activity. So I with this activity, I'm so much inspired to care and to fight for the climate solution that if it means that taking an action as an individual to fight to see that all this environmental effect and all this climate crisis should come to an end or we should struggle to see how we can reduce it to our very, our very best is going to help us a lot starting with us and the individual, we need to start taking personal action in doing things that will help sustain our environment and sustain the world also at large and not just sustaining ourselves as an individual, but also taking into consideration of the future of our future generation. Because it is like I said, the day, the last tree on earth is going to be fell down, the last human being on earth is going to die. So if we don't take action, now, we risk losing our future and losing the planet Earth. Thank you.
